The invention relates generally to online business methods, and more specifically to a method for implementing an online record business whereby large numbers of unknown artists can have their music made available to the public and wherein the public votes on which artists they like and whereby the online record business enters into recording contracts based on the public voting.
Music is one of the most popular forms of entertainment in the world, but it is also a big business. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, domestic sales of recorded music were $13.7 billion in 1998, or more than one-third of worldwide revenue.
Of the $13.7 billion in revenue, xe2x80x9crockxe2x80x9d remained the dominant genre, with 25.7% of the market in 1998. The next most popular category was xe2x80x9ccountry,xe2x80x9d with 14.1%. Rhythm and blues (xe2x80x9cRandBxe2x80x9d) came in next at 12.8%, with xe2x80x9cpopxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9crapxe2x80x9d coming in at 10.0% and 9.7%, respectively. As can be seen, these five categories of music are responsible for over 72% of all sales, and it is these genres to which the present application is directed. Moreover, the buyers of these categories of music are also the most Internet-aware.
The compact disc (CD) became the dominant format for recorded music in 1992, the year in which its market share (in terms of dollars, not units) barely exceeded that of cassettes (46.5% vs. 43.6%). However, in terms of dollars, CDs now outsell cassettes by a 5-to-1 margin. The shift to this new format did not take place overnight, but it did take place. It is Applicants"" belief that the same transformation from CDs to a purely digital format is inevitable.
The sale of prerecorded music is mostly of interest to the younger consumer, and over 73% of revenue is derived from buyers aged 10-39. The importance of this is the fact that, except for the 18.1% market share attributed to buyers 45 and older, the next greatest demographic segment is buyers aged 15-19, with 15.8% of the market; and it is this category of buyer that is among the most Internet-aware.
In 1998, 85.2% of music sales took place in retail stores, with record clubs having a distant 9% share of the market. By contrast, the Internet was in distant last place at only 1.1%. Given that the market for domestic music is almost $14 billion, each one-percent of additional market share translates into $140 million in sale, assuming no growth in the market as a whole.
The music industry has not changed very much during the last few decades. Record companies typically require artists to sign exclusive contracts, and in exchange, the record labels develop, distribute, and promote the music. Additionally, the major record labels (as well as several xe2x80x9cindependentxe2x80x9d labels) control, to a great extent, the type and quantity of recorded music that consumers can buy.
This existing system limits artists and consumers in the following ways:
Few artists can sell enough music to cover the high distribution and promotion costs. These costs include producing CDs and tapes, inventory and retail chain management as well as television, print and radio promotions and public relations efforts.
The majority of artists can only reach limited audiences due to finite shelf space at retailers and limited air time on radio and television stations, thus limiting the choices available to consumers.
There is very little communication and exchange of information between artists and consumers. For example, artists do not readily know who is buying their music or how to contact them, and consumers often do not have an opportunity to interact directly with their favorite artists.
Because of these limitations, the number of artists served by the existing music distribution system is small compared to the universe of musicians with commercial aspirations. According to a recent Gallup poll, over 25% of the U.S. population over the age of twelve, or 53 million people, are active music-makers. In addition, according to the National Association of Music Merchants, approximately 62% of U.S. households contain an amateur musician. These musicians represent a broad spectrum of artists including hobbyists, amateurs, semi-professional and professional musicians.
The World-Wide Web is also emerging as an important source of music, dramatically altering the way consumers discover, listen to and purchase music. According to Jupiter Communications, domestic sales of recorded music over the Internet are projected to grow from approximately $327 million in 1999 to $2.6 billion in 2002. The Web offers music fans major advantages over traditional media, such as unprecedented interactivity and access to new and archived music content on demand. Since music initially appeared on the Web, the number and types of music Web sites have expanded to include content, e-commerce and downloadable music sites. As a result, both consumers and artists have embraced the Web as an attractive medium for exploring and distributing music content. Forrester Research estimates that approximately 50 million individuals will be capable of downloading and playing digital music by the end of 1999. In addition, a number of artists, such as Public Enemy, Green Day, Hole and Todd Rundgren, either sell CDs directly through their Web sites or allow visitors to purchase and download digital music.
In recent years, consumers have increasingly used their computers to play music. Dataquest estimates that in 1998, 30% of U.S. households had multimedia PCs with a sound card, speakers and either a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive. Consumers can now play CDs on their computers with the ease and fidelity formerly associated only with stereo systems.
However, music files can be very large. For example, a three-minute song can occupy more than thirty megabytes of storage. Storing and transferring audio files can be expensive and slow. To address this problem, compression formats have been developed. One of the first widely accepted standards for the compression of music was xe2x80x9cmp3xe2x80x9d, adopted by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). There are also competitive formats that may receive more widespread industry and consumer acceptance. These formats have different and additional features including SDMI (Secure Digital Music Initiative) and proprietary audio formats from companies like Microsoft Corporation and ATandT Corp. The mp3 standard offers at least 10:1 compression and audio integrity at near-CD quality. Mp3 playback is currently available on most operating environments including Microsoft Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT and MacOS, most major versions of UNIX and many other operating environments.
Capitalizing on the growing popularity of mp3, Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc. introduced the Rio, the first commercially available mp3 portable player, in November 1998. Over 250,000 units have been sold to date. Several other manufacturers, including Creative Labs, Thompson Multimedia""s RCA division, LG Electronics and Samsung, have recently released or announced plans to sell portable mp3 players.
The development of compression formats like mp3 has made it practical to transmit music over the Internet. However, until recently there have been few legitimate sources of downloadable music on the Internet.
The distribution method of recorded music has changed very little over time. Until recently, a typical arrangement required solid relationships between recording companies and distributors. It is believed that eventually, recording companies may distribute digitally their music directly to the consumer.
The following discussion relates to currently-available online promotion and distribution of music and music-related products.
Traditional music industries companies, including BMG Entertainment, a unit of Bertelsmann AG; EMI Group plc; Sony Corporation; Time Warner, Inc. and Universal Music Group, a unit of the Seagram Company Ltd. have recently entered in the online commercial community and are currently backing the SDMI security format.
Examples of providers of online music content are Emusic.com Inc. (formerly GoodNoise Corporation), Launch Media, Inc., Mp3.com, Musicmaker.com, and Tunes.com. Some of these companies offer artist services.
Examples of companies offering mp3 or other audio compression formats are ATandT Corp., IBM Corporation, Liquid Audio, Inc., Microsoft Corporation and RealNetworks, Inc. Some of these companies also offer customers the ability to download music from their web sites.
Examples of online music retailers are Amazon.com, Inc. and CDNow Inc., as well as online xe2x80x9cportalsxe2x80x9d such as American Online, Inc., Excite, Inc., Infoseek Corporation, Lycos, Inc. and Yahoo, Inc.
In particular, Amazon.com has announced its launch of a digital-download area on its Web site, allowing free song downloads. In addition, America Online recently announced its acquisition of two Internet music companies, Spinner Networks, Inc. and Nullsoft, Inc. and stated its intent to offer downloadable music in leading formats.
Other companies have agreed to work together to offer music over the Internet. For example, in May 1999, Microsoft Corporation and Sony Corporation announced an agreement to pursue a number of cooperative activities. Sony has announced that it will make its music content downloadable from the Internet using Microsoft""s multimedia software. In addition, Universal Music Group and BMG Entertainment have announced a joint venture to form an online music store, and Musicmaker.com recently announced that it signed an exclusive 5-year-licensing agreement for EMI""s music catalogue for custom compilation CDs.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,237,157 (Kaplan) discloses a user interactive multi-media based point-of-preview system. In particular, this system comprises a kiosk station at which a user can preview music available on CDs at a retail store.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,963,916 (Kaplan) discloses a system for online user interactive multimedia based point-of-preview. An improvement to U.S. Pat. No. 5,237,157 (Kaplan), this system basically integrates a network web site as the source of pre-recorded products.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,629,867 (Goldman) discloses a digital radio broadcast station which includes a single online digital database having stored therein a plurality of at least several hundred different selections of music to be played and broadcast by the radio station.
In view of all of the above, there remains a need for an online record business that provides talent recruitment world-wide, from any artist that wishes to participate. Furthermore, there remains a need for an online record business that presents these artists"" works for review by the consuming public and then obtains feedback from the consuming public on which artists the consuming public prefers. Finally, there remains a need for an online record business that awards recording contracts to participating artists based on the consuming public feedback.
Accordingly, it is the general object of this invention to provide an apparatus which improves upon and overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art.
It is another object of this invention to provide a method and system for implementing an online record business.
It is still another object of this invention to provide a method and system for implementing an online record business that provides for talent recruitment from artists world-wide.
It is still another object of this invention to provide a method and system for implementing an online record business that permits any artist to participate in the worldwide talent recruitment.
It is still another object of this invention to provide a method and system for accelerating and streamlining the process through which the record industry recruits new talent.
It is still yet a further object of this invention to provide for decreased talent acquisition costs, decreased marketing costs and decreased production costs.
It is still yet another object of this invention to provide a method and system for implementing an online record business that provides for retrieving and analyzing music-listening consumer feedback.
It is still yet another object of this invention to provide an interactive investment simulation game.
It is even a further object of this invention to provide a method and system for implementing an online record business that awards recording contracts based on the feedback from the music-listening consumer feedback.
It is even yet a further object of this invention to provide a virtual record label.
It is still yet another object of this invention to provide a method and system that offers participating artists the opportunity to upload and promote their music through their own Web page.
It still yet another object of this invention to provide a method and system for participating recording artists to reap the benefits of a multi-million dollar marketing campaign without spending any additional money of their own.
It is still yet another object of this invention to provide a method for providing one of the largest collections of music available online.
It is still yet another object of this invention to provide a method for browsing the large collection of music using multiple genre and geographical search classifications.
It is still yet another object of this invention to provide a method and system for providing an interactive music-based game for obtaining consuming public feedback.
It is still yet another object of this invention to provide a method and system for purchasing music in a cost and time efficient manner.
It is still yet another object of this invention to provide a method and system for building brand awareness through a combination of online and off-line advertising and promotional activities.
It is even yet a further object of this invention to provide a method and system for identifying international artists to add to the talent pool.
It is even yet another object of this invention to provide a method and system for multiple language content, multilevel geographical indexing, global reach and rankings.
These and other objects of the instant invention are achieved by providing a method for recruiting artists (e.g., musicians, models, authors, etc.) world-wide having artistic works (e.g., music, appearance, story scripts, etc.). The method comprises the steps of: (a) providing a web site over global computer networks (e.g., the Internet) by a support entity (e.g., an online record business, modeling business, story-scripting business, etc.); (b) communicating with the web site by the artists world-wide for uploading representations of their respective artistic works and personal information for evaluation by the support entity that supports the web site in order to recruit the artists; and (c) making each of the respective artistic works and personal information available to the consuming public for the review of the consuming public via the web site.
These and other objects of the instant invention are also achieved by providing a method for obtaining consumer feedback world-wide regarding artistic works (e.g., music, appearance, story scripts, etc.) by artists (e.g., musicians, models, authors, etc.). The method comprises the steps of: (a) providing a web site over global computer networks (e.g., the Internet) that make the artistic works available for consideration by the consuming public and wherein the web site is supported by a support entity (e.g., an online record business, modeling business, story-scripting business, etc.); and (b) communicating with the web site by the consuming public for providing feedback (e.g., using an interactive artist-investment simulation game) as to those artistic works that are preferred by the consuming public.
These and other objects of the instant invention are also achieved by providing a system for recruiting artists (e.g., musicians, models, authors, etc.) world-wide having artistic works ( ) and wherein the artistic works are loadable onto global computer networks (e.g., the Internet). The system comprises: a web site available on the global computer networks; an artist database in communication with the web site; and an artist works database in communication with the web site. The web site stores artist information in the artist database and stores the artistic works in the artist works database for consideration by the consuming public via the web site. The web site, artist database and artist works database are supported by a support entity (e.g., an online record business, modeling business, story-scripting business, etc.).
These and other objects of the instant invention are also achieved by providing a system for obtaining consumer feedback (e.g., via.an interactive artist-investment simulation game) world-wide regarding artistic works (e.g., music, appearance, story scripts, etc.) wherein the artistic works are loadable onto global computer networks (e.g, the Internet). The system comprises: a web site available on the global computer networks; an artist database in communication with the web site; an artist works database in communication with the web site; an end-user database in communication with the web site; a statistics database in communication with the web site; and content databases in communication with the web site. The web site stores artist information in the artist database, stores the artistic works in the artist works database, stores artist content in the content databases, stores consuming public information in the end-user database and stores web site use information by the consuming public in the statistics database. The artist database and the artist works database are searchable by the consuming public for consideration by the consuming public world-wide via the content database. In addition, the end-user database and the statistics database are utilized for analyzing the consuming public feedback.